US troops join Ecuador drug raids in unprecedented operation

In a dramatic departure from traditional US policy in Latin America, armed American soldiers this week took part in direct raids on drug cartels in Ecuador. At least three suspected drug traffickers were killed in the joint operations with local security forces, and dozens more were arrested.

According to a statement from the Ecuadorian government, the operations targeted sprawling drug networks linked to Mexican cartels, chief among them the notorious Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The direct involvement of American soldiers in combat operations on the ground is a significant break from the Pentagon's traditional role in the region, which until now has focused on providing intelligence and equipment.

Major raid in Guayaquil and the killing of "Charlie"

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, some 50 US military personnel joined more than 300 Ecuadorian police officers last Thursday in a coordinated raid in the port city of Guayaquil and other locations. The operation directly targeted a sprawling drug network linked to the Mexican cartel, and more than 30 suspects were arrested.

Official footage released by the local interior minister showed dramatic scenes of police officers alongside masked American soldiers, wearing the US flag on their uniforms, raiding luxury homes in upscale neighbourhoods.

Days earlier, Ecuadorian soldiers, with intelligence and tactical backing from US Southern Command, ambushed and killed the head of a local drug organisation known as "Charlie", along with two of his bodyguards, in the coastal province of Manabí. Charlie was a member of the local crime organisation Los Choneros and maintained close ties with Mexican cartels.

Ecuador's defence minister, Gian Carlo Loffredo, summed up the killing in a blunt statement in a video he released: "We said it was either prison or hell, and he didn't make it to prison."

Adam Isacson, a security expert at the Washington Office on Latin America research institute, described the events as highly unusual. He said that if the current model of operations in Ecuador expands to other countries in the region, it could drag American soldiers into direct combat with armed crime cartels.

US Southern Command, meanwhile, declined to provide operational details, but said the joint operations "demonstrate Ecuador's determination to confront regional threats". This involvement joins a series of aggressive moves the US has taken in recent months.

Ecuador, sandwiched between the world's two largest cocaine powers, Colombia and Peru, has found itself in recent years at the heart of the terror and crime map. Murder rates in the country are soaring and have become the highest on the entire continent.

Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, has consistently demanded international assistance. In his speech this week to the UN General Assembly, he declared: "No country can defeat alone an enemy that recognises no borders."

Noboa has positioned Ecuador as one of the central partners in the Trump administration's regional security alliance "Americas Shield", designed to eradicate crime and terror organisations in the Western Hemisphere. During a recent visit to the capital Quito, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that American elite forces are already operating on the ground shoulder to shoulder with the Ecuadorian military in the war against drug cartels.